I have always loved the Wizard of Oz!
Yeah, yeah, I know what that's supposed to signify!
That's why only a few people know it's one of my all time faves.
However, whenever I've heard the movie mentioned in relation to, or by, those of a less mainstream sexual preference, it has been alongside phrases akin to 'The path of Dorothy' etc. I suspect that the movie's thinly veiled 'Be who you are' and 'You're as strong as you need to be' message, is what grabs those who love Dorothy but, not having been born on that tram, I'm of course only guessing.
My own personal magic moment in the movie relates to another aspect of the 'ownership of self' themes I believe it explores. As you may have guessed if you've read previous posts, my 'Dorothy' moment comes when she comprehends that the 'Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz', isn't a wizard at all!
I first saw the Wizard of Oz in the cinema, when Mum and Dad took my brother and I. I'd have been about 6.
For me the seed of atheism, though not comprehended fully, was planted...
The moment you choose to see beyond the smoke and mirrors and take a look behind the curtain at how things work, reality is revealed.

"For Wizard... Read God! For Smoke and Mirrors... Read Heaven!"

God was dead?

It was that simple but it took me another decade

to bury the bastard!

(If I trampled any PC toes in this post please slap my face in the comments)

In a situation where you are dealing with the apparently inexplicable, do you instantly jump to a supernatural explanation?

If so, you are not alone.

The great majority of the human race have not yet managed to evade the pervasive Religio-Magical background noise that is generated by those who offer supernatural explanations for the unexplained in the world. Those traditions of our primitive past that infest our collective consciousness and infringe on individual thought processes, projecting magical solutions where none are required.
However, as these are primitive coping strategies, they are very easily countered with modern day magic, the power of reason.

So, as an antidote to the caveman’s magical solution route that you have been trained from birth to follow, when next faced with a suspected supernatural happenstance, give Crispy Sea’s patented “Magic & Mumbo Jumbo Test” a try.

1. Think about an unexplained event that you’ve experienced, or one that you’ve heard about.
2. Construct ANY set of events or circumstances by which that experience could have come about by NATURAL means.

As an example a friend told me this tale...“When I woke up I found a earring under my pillow. I’d never seen it before. It was a teardrop-shaped diamond about the size of a sunflower seed on a gold stud for a pierced ear. How on earth did it get there? Spooky eh? Do you think it might be a message from b-e-yyy-o-n-d?!?”

3. If you can think of one natural set of events which could bring it about, that one natural set, however apparently unlikely or contrived, is still vastly more likely than any supernatural explanation.
4. If you however cannot think a set of events, this is not proof of the experience's super-nature, this merely means that you have not been able to think of a set which explains it.
5. Ask someone cleverer.
6. If they cannot think of circumstances, keep asking until you find someone who can think of one.
7. When you have asked everyone in the world for an explanation and nobody has provided a set of natural events to explain the experience. Then and only then, You could, as a very last resort, file it under -"Oh well that's unexplained then!"
8. Under no circumstances attribute the supernatural as an explanation, as this invariably leads to other, more rational, humans labelling you as "ALWAYS WRONG". You may even go down in history as the big silly who was always very, very, very wrong! (sounds like it might be best to avoid that!)
9. Mystery solved. Congratulations, your event was not supernatural. Please go about you business feeling enlightened.

If you were wondering about the earring...

With all easily explainable routes of how the earring got there exhausted (and no it definitely wasn't another woman's. For sure. ), the teller of the tale had turned to a supernatural 'ghostly message' sort of an answer.
However, upon applying Crispy Sea’s patented “Magic & Mumbo Jumbo Test” (it was the system's test flight... I was a bit nervous!) it was discovered that, far from a supernatural explanation, it was infinitely more likely that a passing magpie had inadvertently dropped the earring which had then bounced off a bush and up though a slightly open window, bouncing off the open wardrobe door and into the bed. With the natural movement of the bed's occupants, the earring had ended up under the pillow.
QED - potentially 'Spooky Haunted House' cleansed. Nonsense quashed before it turned into 'Spooky Haunted House Legend' and all by FREE logic. Remarkable! lol.

While all posts are copyright of the blog's owner, the method of

Crispy Sea’s patented

“Magic & Mumbo Jumbo Test”

(repeatable under lab conditions)

is freely distributable to all those unfortunate afflicted

who still believe in the various forms of spiritual nonsense

to which much of humanity is sadly addicted.

This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!Back to the Core TMQ"

This post is about we, not the you & me, we (as far as I'm aware we've not met lol) and not urine, that's a different spelling. No, this is post is about the use and abuse of the word 'WE' meaning 'us', a group.
Not the most exciting word you might think and to be fair I mostly agree, we is just a word of inclusion. Right? A friendly 'group hug', cuddly sort of word?
Well yes it is but it can also be exclusive (bullying) and divisive.

The problem with the word "WE" is directly because of its very ubiquitousness - it's so incredibly useful, it substitutes for all sorts of collectives.

We can mean "I" - The 'royal' we (inclusive of a monarch's subjects by extension)
We can mean "you" - When the person saying it has no intention of helping!
We can mean "but not you" - A bullying group can snidely say to a deliberately excluded individual - "We're going to the cinema."
We can mean a pair - Partnership - Business / Marital / Sexual etc.
We can mean a small group - Activists / Book club / Community / Council / Lodge / Secret Society / Petitioners - "We, the undersigned..."
We can mean a 'loose' group - People form transient We's - when at a convention, a lecture, an evening class or jury duty etc.
We can mean a large group - Political Party / Trade Union / Sports or Music fans etc.
We can mean a massive group - Religion / Language / Country - "We, the people..."
We can mean a racial group - White / Black / Blue (I'm just being inclusive of 'Smurfs' and 'Avatar's Na'vi Clan')

The problem is, 'WE' is contextual and every contextual word depends heavily on the ability of the listener to correctly recognise the context in which you are using your 'we'.

As an example...
If someone said to you... "We are the master species on this planet." you might easily assume these are the words of a bigot. However, on hearing the intended, unspoken meaning of that someone's message... "We (the human race) are the master species on this planet." You might change your mind. Even, maybe, agree.

Alternatively, consider this...
A politician on a stage may say "WE" and though he knows he's only referring to his 'party's top boys committee' too which he belongs, every audience member will likely consider themselves included in the "WE" of his statement, incorrectly assuming (or just wishing) that the politician is including them in that 'WE' group. (It's what politician's bank on!)

Perhaps when we hear someone say "WE", we should consider that we have had to assume meaning based on our experiences.
Perhaps when we hear someone say "WE", we should remember and beware of our own fears. Whether they be core fears, socially or religiously indoctrinated fears, or just pet fears, no matter whence they come, our own fears will likely have a bearing on the meaning of the "WE's" that we hear.

And none of us are immune, we are all forced to draw on past experience to comprehend contextually. Society would grind to a halt without contextual shortcuts. Twitter exists only because of our naturally evolved contextual brevity.

So finally... (hey, less of the relieved sighs!)
If what we assume, when we hear "WE", tells us more about our individual self than we'd immediately think, then perhaps, it may be wise to ask for clarification before jumping to misjudgement and ripping the speaker's head off!

This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!

I have no real idea when I reclaimed my atheism. It was young, maybe 6 or 7. I started noticing some things the grown ups were saying, didn't make sense. I felt silly doing prayers and hymns and pretending like everybody else was.
After a conversation about our respective childhood religious indoctrinations with @CMS11163 I started remembering something that, over half a dozen childhood years, had become a kind of mantra of a tot's defiance - an array of unasked queries about the Lord’s Prayer. A mantra which occupied my head whilst I was forced to speak the expected nonsense to everyone’s favourite invisible friend on the weekly let’s pretend day for ‘grown ups’.
It didn’t seem unusual that the grown ups had a ‘dressing up and pretending day’, we had them in nursery and primary school all the time. They had been fun but, by the age of 8, I thought myself much too grown up for such silly games. I didn’t begrudge those who were still wanting to pretend, it was kind of fun but I just didn’t want any part of that ‘This is just being silly’ feeling that I got every time I prayed.

The Lord’s Prayer

( My Lord’s Prayer Thoughts )

Our Father, which art in heaven,

( He's not my Dad! Dad's my Dad! How do they know he does drawings in heaven? Wherever that is! )

hallowed be thy name;

( Rubbish name hallowed! )

thy kingdom come;

( Why do they say we go to heaven then? )

thy will be done,

( Who will do him? He’s not very great if someone can do him! )

on earth as it is in heaven.

( It’s the same in heaven as here! That’s pants! )

Give us this day our daily bread.

( Don’t like bread, hate crusts! )

And forgive us our trespasses,

( Eh? Is trespass an old word for wee’d your trousers? )

as we forgive them that trespass against us.

( I wouldn’t forgive someone who wee’d on my trousers? )

And lead us not into temptation;

( Why would he do that? That would be a dirty trick! )

but deliver us from evil.

( When did Satan post us and why were we in hell? )

For thine is the kingdom,

( I thought it was called heaven! Where’s 'Thine' now? )

the power, and the glory,

( What? What’s that about? )

for ever and ever.

( Eh? Isn’t ‘for ever’ & ‘ever’ the same? Is the second one really needed? )

Amen.

( Ahh Men? A man? An men? Eh? What about Awomen? )

I guess that's where the Too Many Questions started!

This is one of the Too Many Questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!Back to the Core TMQ"

There are many instances in the bible where jesus talks with god, and many are performed outloud and before of a crowd.

Why?

God is supposed to know everything. Isn't he?

His son would surely know that? Wouldn't he? He would, right?

He seems to know it anyway, 'from the horses mouth', his 'own' words in that book about him. So I reckon it's pretty fair to assume that the son of god would know that he didn't need to have ANY audible conversations with dad/god?
Indeed, would it be reasonable to further assume that for god to be kept up to speed about what's going on in his ONLY son's life, Jesus would only have had to think something? And Dad, being god and all, would know the thought in his son's head, possibly even before his son had thought it? And I don't want to get into the "God IS Jesus" nonsense but really, if he is 'him & himself', wouldn't he already know what he wanted to tell himself?
Oooh almost spiraled down the great fuzzy bollocks plughole there! Anyway to tidy up all those messy thoughts into what I'm actually pondering...

As any speech where Jesus is addressing God is unnecessary for communication, what is it's purpose?

To answer that I think we need to look at the second component to this 'Jesus speaks to God' paradigm that spangles the new testament. That is, as I mentioned at the top...

Outloud and before a crowd.

As we have already cast serious doubt on Jesus' need to communicate outloud with an all knowing father who is also himself, I feel it must be assumed that any conversation Jesus had with God which was outloud and before a crowd was ONLY to convince the crowd. An 'only for show' manipulation of his primitive fishermen and labourer followers.
He was pretending, play acting so that they would come to the conclusion he desired. (the conclusion that there is a god)

It may be argued that a manipulation 'merely to make his point' is excusable but I'd suggest it doesn't matter how favourable a truth is to a person, if they were led to it by foul means, they have been deceived. And I'd further suggest that for a 'supreme' being, any manipulation is a deception.

But if the entire speech at 'The Last Supper' is nothing more than a deception? What then? (The last supper sits somewhere in the region of John: Chapters 13 to 18) If that entire 'finale' is only an act, a last gasp convincer for his followers, then shouldn't Jesus (who is also god remember) be viewed as a deceiver?
And if he is 'him & himself' as 'they' suggest (God = Jesus) then doesn't that mean god is capable of deception too?

A god with the ability to tell lies?

Wouldn't that reduce one of the pillars of christian debate..."god tells the truth, the bible is the word of god, the bible is the truth."
...to a pile of rubble?

At the very least, doesn't it place
every promise that god ever made
on very shaky ground?

And considered under this criteria, for whose benefit is his 'ultimate' speech?
What is the purpose of 'his' 'fine prose' whilst in 'agony' on the cross?

"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" Luke 23:34

Jesus' seemingly solely altruistic voice is not benign but manipulative, a deliberate deceit
So, who in the bible is the great deceiver?
Seems to me, on Biblical evidence
Jesus = Satan

This is one of the Too many questions

PEACE
Crispy

Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!Back to the Core TMQ"

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